A util to scan windows for viruses from linux???

[Edward78]

  Good free one would be great any advice???

[monjessenstein]

Could you be a bit more specific with "viruses from linux". AFAIK if you get a virus on one OS it won't migrate to the other (correct me if I'm wrong).

[Edward78]

3 minutes ago, monjessenstein said:

Could you be a bit more specific with "viruses from linux". AFAIK if you get a virus on one OS it won't migrate to the other (correct me if I'm wrong).

I want a av util that will scan windows, but for linux..

[Windows7ge]

Do you mean like having a windows slave drive plugged into a Linux machine and scanning it? I've not heard of any anti-virus software designed to be installed on one OS but to scan another. Also there's the issues of (correct me if this has changed of recent) but Linux not fully supporting NTFS. I've been told you can read from NTFS but cannot write to it which would make virus scanning one kind of useless.

[Edward78]

Just now, Windows7ge said:

Do you mean like having a windows slave drive plugged into a Linux machine and scanning it? I've not heard of any anti-virus software designed to be installed on one OS but to scan another. Also there's the issues of (correct me if this has changed of recent) but Linux not fully supporting NTFS. I've been told you can read from NTFS but cannot write to it which would make virus scanning one kind of useless.

Crap great point...

[Windows7ge]

7 minutes ago, Edward78 said:

Crap great point...

There may be exceptions to this, I'm no Linux guru.

[Master Disaster]

12 minutes ago, Windows7ge said:

Do you mean like having a windows slave drive plugged into a Linux machine and scanning it? I've not heard of any anti-virus software designed to be installed on one OS but to scan another. Also there's the issues of (correct me if this has changed of recent) but Linux not fully supporting NTFS. I've been told you can read from NTFS but cannot write to it which would make virus scanning one kind of useless.

You're wrong. Linux has full NTFS read & write support. You are half right though in that it comes set to read only mode, R/W support must be enabled by the user.

 

32 minutes ago, Edward78 said:

  Good free one would be great any advice???

Many AVs offer bootable discs that let you scan a drive outside of the OS but I don't know of any free ones. Things that specialised are always going to be paid.

 

You tried Hirens Boot CD?

[Windows7ge]

14 minutes ago, Master Disaster said:

You're wrong. Linux has full NTFS read & write support. You are half right though in that it comes set to read only mode, R/W support must be enabled by the user.

I knew I had to be wrong somewhere but that's interesting news to note. Glad I found out.

[GlobalPentahedron Corp]

you want clamav

[Guest]

14 hours ago, Edward78 said:

I want a av util that will scan windows, but for linux..

I don't honestly know if something like that just exist for Linux, there actually are bootable anti virus scan utilities, you can try them

 

13 hours ago, Master Disaster said:

You're wrong. Linux has full NTFS read & write support. You are half right though in that it comes set to read only mode, R/W support must be enabled by the user.

 

Many AVs offer bootable discs that let you scan a drive outside of the OS but I don't know of any free ones. Things that specialised are always going to be paid.

 

You tried Hirens Boot CD?

Yea Linux has full NTFS support, it just sucks at removing hiberfiles when there is a dual boot system, most Linux desktops are also just using userspace file system access like gvfs and ntfs is automatically enabled with r/w support

[Wild Penquin]

Yes, clamav will do the trick and is probably what the OP needs. I'm not aware of any alternatives (probably because clamav does it's job good enough, is free and open source - and in such a case, it makes little sense to divide development efforts into separate projects).

 

About viruses in general: There have been little viruses for Linux. The most probable reason is that Linux (or OS X) is a less popular OS. It makes sense for virus writers to target popular OSes of the time (such as DOS and Windows). Also, Linux is/has been protected by more computer-literate users, who are less likely to fall into "stupid mistakes", say dialog boxes on web sites etc.; and are more likely to be able to spot viruses and be prepared for them. Also, Linux as an OS (at least pre-Windows XP) was much better protected against virus infections (although, it can not be stressed enough: it was never immune. The protection comes only from more clearer the separation of Kernel | user-space | permission system of the OS FS). But: the protection from rarity and more-computer-literate user space might diminish, as a OS becomes more popular (and possibly the average user is not that computer literate as before).

 

Usually (at least historically) Viruses have not (usually!) migrated from an OS to another. But this is not a "safe" assumption; it has been like this only because it has been convenient from the viruses point of view (or their developers). It is certainly possible to write a OS-agnostic virus (even across architectures, I'd assume it is more easier though if the CPU architecture is the same - which used to protect OS X users). There more and more common factors between OSes, such as web browsers, and common scripted languages (Javascript and the like) which might run OS-agnostic viruses. Also there are file formats, which are borderline (or actual) programming languages in their own right, and could (at least in theory) contain a virus. One good example is MS Word macro viruses, and these are OS agnostic at least to a certain degree.

 

Also, it is possible a Windows virus will run in Wine (in OS X or a Linux desktop environment). It will still see a Windows machine, but it doesn't mean it can not corrupt the users files (depends on how Wine is/was configured, but 99% of the time it has full R/W support to the users home dir who is running Wine).

 

There's one important point, though: just because a Virus could not run on your OS, doesn't mean it is desirable to share viruses from files you got elsewhere for your peers (who might run another OS). That's why it is a bit naïve to claim there are no scanners targeting viruses made for another OS than on which they are running. There is a clear need, and there have (pratically) always been virus scanners for "other" OSes, especially on non-Desktop-only oriented OSes (clamav runs on many OSes, btw).

[Aremis]

Theres both liveCD's and utilities if you have an existing install.  I'd just say get a ubuntu liveCD and install Clam and scan from the liveCD.  Its way far ahead of any of the consumer virus scanners.

[KRDucky]

there are several AV tools on Linux that will scan a Windows partition for viruses.

 

As previously mentioned: ClamAV Also available on Windows and MacOS.

Other options:

 

• Sophos Antivirus for Linux - Detects, Blocks and removes Windows, Mac and Android malware. Works with Web Servers, NFS servers, FTP servers or desktop Linux. Really any Linux works just fine. Current supported platforms include: Amazon Linux, CentOS, Debian, Mint, Oracle, Red Hat, SUSE, TurboLinux and Ubuntu.
• ckrootki / rkhunter
• Lynis
• ISPProtect
• Kaspersky Anti-Virus for Linux/Endpoint Security for Linux
• Avast Security Suite for Linux
• ESET File Security for Linux / FreeBSD
• Bitdefender for Linux